#ENERGY: Bacteria Grow Organic Local-Area Networks for Fuel Cells

Researchers believe that recently discovered microbial "electrical hairs" work like nanoscale local-area networks, allowing bacteria to communicate shared threats, collective capabilities and other information that helps the colony distribute resources and survive. Look for researchers to harness bacteria to grow nanowires to increase the efficiency of fuel cells within five years. R. Colin Johnson, Kyoto Prize Fellow @NextGenLog

In times of stress, here immobilized in a biofilm, bacteria grow nanowire-like appendages between cells.

Here is what Smarter Technology says about bacteria: The human body has long been known to perform internal communications among nerve cells with electro-chemical signals, but now bacteria have been shown to set up their own external communication links among widely separated cells using organic nanowires...The researchers speculate that in nature, these nanowires are used to normalize the metabolic status a biofilm, whereas they propose repurposing them to form self-repairing structures in organic circuitry like the microbial fuel cells under development at USC.
Full Text: http://bit.ly/NextGenLog-aF3W